Where Data Tells the Story
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ELI5 (Explain Like I'm 5)
A big survey asked thousands of people in nine countries what makes them happy. Every single thing on the list (family, friends, work, exercise, eating out) got less popular as a happy thing between 2022 and 2025. Only “going to bars” stayed the same. Family dropped the most. The survey suggests people around the world are feeling less joy from almost everything in their lives.
The Story
A global survey asked internet users what brings them joy. Researchers tracked ten categories across nine markets over three and a half years.
Between July 2022 and December 2025, every single source of joy either declined or held flat.
The data for the visualization above comes from the WARC 2026 Global Consumer Trends Report accessed via Media Brief.
NOTE: It’s based on 10,658 respondents in July 2022 and 8,831 in December 2025, all of whom were internet users aged 16-64.
In July 2022, 66% of respondents said spending time with family brought them joy.
By December 2025, that figure was 53%. Thirteen percentage points were erased from the most fundamental human source of happiness in three and a half years.
A 13-point decline in family joy is the largest absolute decline in the entire dataset and the steepest drop among the top five categories.
Longitudinal happiness research, including the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which followed participants for more than 80 years, consistently identifies close relationships as the single strongest predictor of long-term well-being.